How to choose a good Web Hosting – Understanding uptime

Uptime is extremely important in the world of web hosting. It signifies the amount of time a web server is online and available during a certain time frame. When a server is online, your website is up and available for people to visit.

Some web hosting companies claim 100% uptime with their services. While this is technically possible given a small enough time frame, there is no way for a hosting company to be certain they will have 100% uptime for the duration of a server’s life.

The opposite of uptime is downtime. This is the amount of time a server is offline. Downtime can be attributed to server maintenance, technical failures at the datacenter of the hosting company, or to DDoS attacks on the hosting server.

Downtime is calculated by looking a the uptime claims of a web hosting company. For example, over the course of one year, a host that guarantees 99.9% up time will have 8 hours and 46 minutes of downtime. This can be calculated by taking the amount of hours in a year (8760) and multiplying it by the difference of 100% and the claimed amount of uptime (1.00 – .999 = .001).

When searching for web hosting, always be sure your potential host has an acceptable amount of uptime (99% or higher). This will not only keep you happy, but it will keep your visitors happy as well.

Evaluating Hosting Proposals

After you submit a request to receive web hosting quotes, you should be sure to compare all of the offers from each hosting company. Here are some general guidelines on how to most effectively compare the quotes you receive:

• Wait until you have received at least two quotes. This way you will be able to compare and see which hosting proposal is best suited to your needs and budget.

• Create a comparison spreadsheet with all of the features that you would like. Enter the information from each proposal you receive to visualize which one meets your specific price and requirements.

• Decide what is more important: price or features. One quote may have the better price, but another may have the features you need. Even if it’s more, always go with the feature rich quote as you will be more satisfied and have fewer complications in the long run.

• Take your time deciding which quote to go with. Contacts at hosting companies may be on holiday and get back to you with a fantastic quote later than expected.

After you choose the host that offers you the best deal for what you need, be sure to keep the other quotes handy for future reference. You never know when you may need a new host again!

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